UltraRob's Adventures

Photo from Iditarod Trail photo page
20 Iditarod Trail Invitational racers have made it to McGrath after 350 miles through the snow. For several this is their planned finish. Several others are heading on to Nome another 750 snowy miles away.

Jay Petervary won the leg to McGrath in 3 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes. He is now on his way to Nome. Most likely he'll be passed by the sled dog teams that started yesterday. This summer while we were in Alaska, I talked to a musher and asked him if he had seen the mountain bikers when he was racing the Iditarod. He had and said they were a pretty strange sight.

Jill, who has on a record pace early on, began having trouble staying awake. She spent 17 hours at the Rohn checkpoint. The long stay was partly to dry out a boot that got wet from a bad decision. Most likely that bad decision was from lack of sleep.

She wrote in an update from the Nikolai checkpoint

I bivied again last night at Sullivan Creek when I kept literally falling asleep and falling off my bike. I woke up after three hours and set out to pack up, but it was so, so cold. Everything was frozen solid. My chemical warmers had turned to ice bricks and I couldn't make them go. I crawled back into my bag and waited another couple hours before attempting again. Again, couldn't quite handle the cold. I finally just decided to wait until daylight and stayed in my bag until 10 a.m., but didn't sleep much.

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Labels: Iditarod, mountain biking, snow bike racing

The Iditarod Trail Invitational started on Sunday. It follows the Iditarod sled dog route. Racers choose whether to do it by bike, ski or foot. They also choose whether to go 350 miles to McGrath or 1,100 miles to Nome.

The weather has been good and the snow conditions have been good. Although the trail conditions have been good, there have been several reports of angry moose being on the course. It sounds as thought the leaders are now also running into softer snow.

The good trail conditions had people wondering if Pete Basinger could break his record from last year of 3 days 5 hours 40 minutes. Unfortunately, one of his pedals broke and he had to wait for a new one to be brought in by plane. Amazingly he caught back up to the leaders today. I raced with him at the 2004 Fireweed 400.

A couple weeks ago, I used my cycling and outdoor gear search to raise money for Jill Homer. She is having a great race and is on pace to break the women's record. Her boyfriend, Geoff Roes was leading the foot division but a bad ankle has forced him to turn back.

Currently the leaders are near Rohn 210 miles into the race. It's so remote that there aren't many updates available.

Here are several links to track the race
Iditarod Trail Leader Board
Iditarod Trail Blog
MTBCast Podcast including call-ins from people on the course
NPR's coverage of Jill and Geoff

Also Mike Curiak is again attempting to ride to Nome without using any of the checkpoints along the way. He won't accept any kind of outside help. He's carrying a transmitter that allows him to be tracked. Scott is posting regular updates on Mike's blog.

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Labels: Alaska, Iditarod, mountain biking

Courtesy of Jill
In a couple weeks, Jill from Juneau, Alaska will doing the Iditarod Trail Invitational Race. If you don't read her blog, you really should. She's an amazing writer and posts really great pictures.

The race starts Sunday, February 24th, 2008 and uses the course that the dog sled race uses a week later. Jill is doing the 350 mile division of the race that finishes at McGrath. There's also a 1,100 mile division that goes all the way to Nome. Jill is doing it by bike but some are running or skiing it.

I know first hand that doing a race like this isn't cheap. I wanted to do something to help Jill out. The traffic to my cycling and outdoor gear search has been steadily increasing. I started it to help me be able to afford to attempt the Race Across America again. I get paid a small commission when someone makes a purchase after clicking through from my site.

Monday and Tuesday of next week I'll be donating all commissions to Jill's race fund. If you've been considering buying some cycling or outdoor gear, now you can buy it and support an endurance athlete. You can also go to her blog and donate through PayPal.

If you have a blog or website, you can also help out by getting the word out about what I'm doing to help Jill.

Surly Pugsley Decal Set Price: $14.00

Surly Pugsley Fork Price: $116.00

Surly Pugsley Frameset Price: $575.00

Labels: Alaska, Iditarod, mountain biking